The Jews in America Trilogy (46 page)

In the days that followed the fire, Florine continued to tell the story of the remarkable flying nightgown, taking visitors into Journet's bedroom to see where it had happened, oblivious, apparently, of the appearances of the thing. More and more eyebrows were raised. Finally, the story reached the ears of Alfred's older brother Isaac and their sister Frances, and it was decided that a confidential talk with Alfred was in order.

“Of course, Alfred,” the older Seligmans said, “we are all very fond of Florine, and we
know
there's nothing wrong. But we think you have been somewhat … indiscreet.”

Alfred's reaction was so shocked that the others were convinced he was sincere when he cried, “I don't know what you're talking about!”

Isaac was more specific. “Well, you've recently come back from California, where you were traveling with Journet. Now he has a room in your apartment. Next Saturday you are going to Europe together. People are beginning to talk.”

“You aren't implying—” gasped Alfred.

“Of course not,” said Isaac. “But there is talk, and you should take that into account. It's embarrassing for all of us.”

“But, Ike,” said Alfred, “you don't quite understand. I'm just as much devoted to Journet as Florine is.”

“Certainly,” said Isaac a little stiffly, “and I like him very much too. But people are gossiping more than you realize.”

Isaac then went on to point out a solution. Alfred was to go home, without mentioning their conversation, and tell Florine that “the press of business” would mean that he could not take the Saturday boat to Europe. Journet would depart alone. The talk would stop. With obvious reluctance, Alfred agreed.

When he approached Florine with the proposed change in plans, Florine became agitated. She was counting on the trip. She was tired of New York and had to get to Europe. It was her favorite boat. She didn't believe the trumped-up story about the “press of business.” Alfred had no “business.” Isaac ran the investment house. The more she protested, the more excited she became.

Finally, Alfred said flatly, “Well, whether you like it or not, I've decided that we're not sailing Saturday.”

“We
are!
” she screamed. “At least
I
am!” She burst into tears and cried, “You might as well know!
Journet is my lover!
”

Thunderstruck, Alfred Seligman walked out of the Murray Hill Hotel. He went to live with his mother, who then shared a house with his sister Frances, and for months was sunk in a terrible depression. He would sit for hours in his chair, refusing to speak or leave the house, staring into space, seeing no one. At times, tears would well in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the Seligman family took sides. Frances, though she loved Alfred, blamed her brother for his laxness and his blindness. Florine's aunt, who was married to one of James Seligman's sons, also insisted it was Alfred's fault. Edwin Seligman, to save the good name of the family, led a sturdy band of Seligmans who blamed Florine.

A deep breach between the James and Joseph branches of the family—which had begun over religion, and James's insistence that a rabbi speak at Joseph's grave, and which had continued over the “family skeleton” of James's mistress—widened and deepened as that most terrible of things was contemplated: a Seligman divorce. “One could see it happening to people like the Googs,” wrote Henriette Hellman Seligman despairingly, “but not to
us!
”

As the Seligman lawyers began preparing their briefs, fate stepped in. Florine became ill and was rushed to a hospital, where she underwent an emergency operation and then developed blood poisoning. Dying, she summoned Alfred to her side. In tears, she told him that the affair with Journet had been nothing more than an “obsession.” It was, she said, just like his cousin Angeline's dream of her love affair with the druggist Balch. She begged Alfred to forgive her, but there was really nothing to forgive. She swore that Alfred was the only man she ever loved, and that she had made a will leaving everything she owned to him (which was true, and Alfred, in turn, donated everything she left him to charity). She died in his arms.

Alfred went on with his life, painting, sculpting, playing his cello, working for causes devoted to children's welfare, and never married again. He was killed, a few years later, in an automobile accident.

Florine was buried in the Seligman mausoleum at Salem Fields. Though he had been specifically forbidden to enter, M. Journet used to manage to visit the mausoleum on each of his trips to America through the years until he died. He always left a small nosegay of flowers at the foot of the marble entablature that bore her name.

Florine's story had a pretty-picture, almost operetta ending. A year later when Albert Seligman's son, Jesse II, shot and killed his wife,
who had been “unfaithful,” and then killed himself, it was not so pretty.
*

Even though it was a murder within the family and “within the crowd,” the Seligmans seemed to be having trouble maintaining their “social distinction.”

*
His remains were not admitted to the Seligman mausoleum, but were, for some reason, to the one belonging to his murdered wife's family—where one would think they would be in even less friendly company.

36

THE GREAT BATTLE OF 1109 FIFTH AVENUE

In 1904 Jacob Schiff was at the peak of his career. That summer he had met in London with Baron Korekiyo Takahashi, Financial Commissioner of the Japanese Government and president of the Yokohama Specie Bank. At the heart of their meeting was Japan's need to raise at least five million pounds sterling—in days when the British pound was worth some six U.S. dollars—to finance its war with Russia. Britain was Japan's political and commercial ally, but now London bankers were having difficulty supplying Japan with war financing, and in New York Japan's chances of winning the war were considered remote. For several days Schiff and Takahashi discussed Japan's problems. The meeting ended with Schiff's agreement to handle the loan. It was, as Frieda wrote, “not so much my father's interest in Japan, but rather his hatred of Imperial Russia and its anti-Semitic policies, that prompted him to take this great financial risk.”

Schiff had been outraged by the Czarist pogroms, and had made a number of public statements in which he had called the Russian Government “the enemy of mankind,” and in which he had urged an
armed revolution against the Czar. Takahashi quotes Schiff as saying, “A system of government … capable of such cruelties and outrages at home as well as in foreign relations must be overhauled from the foundations up in the interests of the oppressed race, the Russian people, and the world at large … and taught an object lesson.” Now Schiff set about singlehandedly to abet this overhauling process by helping Japan win her war.

In his new position of peerdom with his old adversary, J. P. Morgan, Schiff approached both Morgan and George F. Baker of the. First National Bank, inviting them to join in the loan. When they agreed, there remained only the Rockefeller-Stillman interests, and the National City Bank, to be persuaded. With both Schiff and Morgan sponsoring the loan, the National City group quickly agreed to participate also. It was the first time in history that Japan had been able to obtain money outside of London, and it took three massive loans, engineered by Schiff, before Japan was declared the victor in 1905.

Now began a long series of honors bestowed upon Schiff. England had backed Japan too, and King Edward VII invited Schiff to luncheon at Buckingham Palace, where Schiff found the King “an amiable fellow.” Next, the Japanese Emperor asked Schiff to come to Japan and receive one of the Empire's highest honors, the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure. Schiff was to be given a private audience with the Mikado himself, and lunch at the imperial palace, where, he was pleased to note, “It is the first time the Emperor has invited a foreign private citizen to a repast at the palace, heretofore only foreign princes having been thus honored.” (The more successful he became, the more formal grew his literary style.)

As a great American railroad financier, he was able to move as grandly across continents as he moved across rooms. Leaving New York for San Francisco, on the first leg of the journey, the Schiff party ensconced itself in two private railway cars, plus a baggage and officers' car. With Mr. and Mrs. Schiff were Ernst Schiff, an unmarried nephew; Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Heidelbach (of the Heidelbach, Ickelheimer Heidelbachs); Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund Neustadt (of Hallgarten & Company); Mr. and Mrs. Henry Budge (Budge had been Mr. Schiff's partner in his first brokerage business); a personal maid for each lady; and Joseph, the Schiff butler. They were accompanied by ninety-odd pieces of luggage, many of them large trunks. They were apparently cramped because they hitched on a fourth private car, a dining car, in Chicago. As the Schiff train rolled from one railroad line to another, it
was ceremoniously greeted by railroad presidents and vice presidents who were keeping track of the progress of the entourage.

Most of the passing landscape Mr. Schiff found uninteresting. But perhaps this was because it was considered proper private-car etiquette to travel with one's curtains closed. Pausing in Salt Lake City, Schiff wrote that it contained “little of particular note or attraction except the Tabernacle and the Temple, the latter not accessible to those not belonging to the Mormon Church.” In San Francisco the Heidelbachs received news of an ailing relative and were forced, regretfully, to turn back for New York. The rest of the party boarded the S.S.
Manchuria
, where a large section of first class had been set aside for them.

In Honolulu Mr. Schiff had word that Queen Liliuokalani wished to receive him and his party. Schiff was not one to turn down an invitation from a queen, even though Liliuokalani at that point was only an ex-queen, but there was a small difficulty. The
Manchuria
was scheduled to spend only an hour or two in Hawaii before continuing on to the Orient; the Queen's invitation was for the following morning. Mr. Schiff took up this problem with the captain, who finally agreed to hold the ship in Hawaii an additional sixteen hours. (How the other passengers on the
Manchuria
felt about the delay is not recorded.)

Even so, it was going to be nip and tuck. The Queen's invitation was for 9:30
A.M.
The Captain had explained that, because of the tides, he could not possibly hold the ship after 10
A.M.
And Mr. Schiff, who was nowhere near so secure with steamship companies as he was with railroads, became quite nervous that the boat would sail without him. Jokingly, one of his party suggested that he kidnap a member of the
Manchuria's
crew and hold him until the audience was over. Schiff thought this an excellent idea and, without more ado, commandeered the
Manchuria's
captain to escort them to the Queen—“as hostage, in order to be certain not to be left behind,” as he explains in his journal of the trip. Jacob Schiff was not one to fool around with cabin boys.

He found the Queen a “stately looking old brown lady, surrounded by some of her ladies-in-waiting who, we understand, are relatives.” This must have seemed quite appropriate to Schiff, who was surrounded by his own relatives.
*
It was a little after ten when the party reboarded the ship, which, as Schiff points out, “could not very well have left without us.”

That evening at the captain's table, where of course the Schiffs sat,
Mr. Schiff said, “Captain, will the
Manchuria
be calling at any more ports where there will be kings or queens?”

“No!” the captain replied. “No! No!”

The rest of the trip was unremarkable.

Schiff was a man of will and a man of tradition. Driving to lunch in the Japanese imperial palace, Schiff announced to the Imperial Chief of Protocol that he wished to propose a toast to the Emperor. In a dither, the Protocol Chief urged him not to, since a toast was a thing “not done” in the Japanese court; the Emperor might misunderstand. Nevertheless, when the guests were seated, Schiff rose and lifted his glass, “To the Emperor. First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.” To everyone's relief, when the Schiff statement had been translated, the Emperor looked pleased.

Not all Schiff's remarks in Japan led to peaceful solutions. At dinner one evening Mr. Schiff found himself seated next to Baron Takahashi's fifteen-year-old daughter, Wakiko, and, in the course of conversation said to her, through an interpreter, “You must come and visit us in New York some time.” A Schiff statement clearly carried as much weight in Tokyo as it did on Wall Street, for the next morning the Baron bowed himself into the Schiffs' apartments and said that, though it was highly unusual for a young Japanese girl to leave her home and country at such a tender age, and to undertake such a long and arduous journey to a foreign land, he had, since Mr. Schiff had proved himself such a friend to Japan, agreed to let Wakiko return to New York with the Schiffs, but he truly felt—and he hoped Mr. Schiff would understand—that Wakiko should not visit the Schiffs for longer than three years.

“Mother,” wrote Mr. Schiff in his diary, “believes it somewhat of a responsibility we are undertaking in assuming charge of the responsibility of the girl and her education but we have decided to assume the responsibility.” There is a hint of Schiff hysteria here, for Mr. Schiff was usually too cautious a stylist to use the word “responsibility” three times in one sentence. And what actually happened was that “Mother”—Therese Schiff—hadn't protested any action of Jacob's so hotly since he threatened to move her to Riverside Drive. But Mr. Schiff was a man of his word. Wakiko joined the Schiff party, returned to America with them, lived her three years with them, and was educated here.
*

Meanwhile, Frieda and Felix Warburg had had, in fairly rapid succession, five children—four of them lively boys—and were beginning to feel crowded in their Seventy-second Street house. They already had, to be sure, quite a comfortable summer place in White Plains. Called “Woodlands,” it was an estate of a mere thirty acres to start, but Felix, who always liked to “square off” his property, enlarged it repeatedly until it composed some six hundred acres. (Penurious Morris Loeb wanted to call it “Moneysunk.”) It was built in the Tudor style around a large central tower, and it had an indoor swimming pool which was also a hothouse filled with orchids and tropical plants. It had—another idea of Felix's—the “Presidential benches,” a series of wooden benches, each engraved with the name of a United States President, stretched along five miles of bridle paths. (The Franklin Pierce bench, at a far corner of the property, was forever being stolen by neighbors for firewood.) Felix loved vistas, and cut down great sweeps of the surrounding forest to create them. When Nina and Paul Warburg first saw Woodlands, Nina said that it was lovely, but she liked a water view—to remind her of Koesterberg on the Elbe, where a number of German Warburgs had summer places. Felix immediately ordered another vista cut down, this time all the way through to the golf pond of the Scarsdale Country Club. (Nina liked it so much that she and Paul came to live there, and built their own house on the estate, where Paul built her a beautiful rustic “outdoor study” with a pool of its own.) Felix was a man of sudden enthusiasms. Once Frieda said, “Wouldn't it be nice to rent two cows so we could have our own milk for the children.” “Oh!” cried Felix, “I've always wanted a Guernsey herd.” So they acquired one.
*
He also laid out a few golf holes on the polo field, which had more or less occurred while he was building his driveway.